Newsletters

Birchbox in first UK TV ad campaign

Birchbox launched its first national TV campaign in the UK on Thursday (March 1) with the country’s leading beauty subscription box company focusing on service.

Birchbox

Developed by PPC Creative, the ads show subscribers opening boxes of beauty treats, “demonstrating the service that Birchbox provides to their 150,000+ subscriber base in the UK each month."

They will air on a range of entertainment, movie, music and lifestyle TV channels, including Sky Entertainment and Sky Movies.

The ads also feature real Birchbox subscribers after the company ran a social media competition. Subscribers were asked to submit a short video of themselves on Instagram explaining why they should be picked, with the winning three featuring in the TV ads.

And the strategy for finding its campaign stars makes sense as the brand has built its business partly through social media. It was the first retailer to use Facebook’s React software in 2017.

The ads are key in the UK, which is its fastest-growing market globally and saw a 63% increase in subscribers last year when its shipped 1.5 million boxes to over 150,000 customers.

So given its existing strength through digital channels, why spend money on further promotion via a more traditional channel such as TV? The company said that despite strong growth in the UK over the past five years, “research carried out in 2017 identified general awareness as a major barrier to customers subscribing,” leading it to make the decision to expand offline “in order to reach out to a broader mass audience through television advertising.”

Local marketing chief Janis Thomas said: “Our next stage of growth will come from reaching and educating more of our potential target customers. We have had great deal of success online and found it a powerful tool. Now that it is time to for us reach new audiences and test new communication channels, we chose television advertising as it is becoming increasingly sophisticated in its targeting abilities.”

The pharmaceutical retail group has taken a minority stake in the monthly beauty subscription service, announcing plans for a partnership that will see Birchbox shops appearing in Walgreens locations from December.

Estee Lauder topped expectations for quarterly profit on Wednesday but investors were worried about slowing U.S. sales as fewer shoppers visit department stores where the company sells a bulk of its products.